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“Every survey I’ve ever seen… shows that people think crime is worse than it is,” Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash said in an interview Tuesday.

“This is something that always concerns us, people think crime is much worse than it is, they restrict their behaviour, they don’t go out perhaps as much, use parks, and open spaces and that’s a problem.”

The number of police-reported crimes fell again in 2013, with 132,000 fewer crimes being reported than 2012, according to Statistics Canada. The statistics agency also considers Toronto one of the safest big cities in Canada. Barrie and Guelph are the two cities with the lowest crime rates.

Dr. Oren Amitay, a Toronto-area registered psychologist, suggested the feeling that crime is increasing is a cognitive bias people have towards what they see the most and the news generally doesn’t show stories about people getting home safely.

“It’s basically, it’s what you are seeing, what you are exposed to,” he said.

“The media is more likely to present crime statistics and crime stories rather than feel good stories.”